New Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti laid out his priorities for the coming year and beyond Tuesday night, earning hearty applause for declaring the district needs to fully staff its classes, restore arts and music programs to schools, do away with outdated resources for teachers and rely on employees, rather than contracted staff, to provide services.

"We have to rebuild our district with actual district employees that have better buy-in and ownership with the work that we do as a district," said Vitti, who began the job May 23.

The latter would be a departure for a district that — during years of emergency management — privatized many functions to companies that have had mixed records.

Tonight was Vitti's first regular school board meeting, and he used his superintendent's report to present his plan, "Charting Our Path Forward."

Vitti began his presentation by highlighting the motto of the city of Detroit: Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus. Loosely, it means "we hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes."

"I do believe it speaks to where we are a district and as a city," Vitti said.

A key step now, Vitti said, is creating "the right team." That team will include people who already work for the district, people Vitti has worked with and people who will be recruited to the district.

"You can have a vision but if you don't have a team that supports that vision ... then it's only a vision. "

And everyone at the district, he said, "should be supporting teachers and principals. Not casually. Not randomly. But with a focused intent, with measurable impact."

Vitti will have a chance to fill one top position. The board announced tonight that Marios Demetriou, the district's deputy superintendent of finance and operations, has resigned and will leave the district at the end of this month.

When he was done laying out his plan, Vitti received applause from many in the audience. Board members, who hired him in April, were also impressed.

"I think he's moving in the right direction," said board member LaMar Lemmons.

Here are some other pieces of Vitti's plan:

• The district needs to ensure that the opening of 2017-18 is a smooth one. That includes being as close to fully staffed as possible, he said. And he said it means they need to do more to recruit and retain staff.

But it also includes making sure all parts of the district are functioning.

"Every time a bus is late, every time a book is not delivered, it sends a message that we’re not serving our children," Vitti said.

And, he said, it gives parents "another reason not to send their children," to DPSCD schools.

• Vitti has talked often about the need to pay teachers better and he reiterated that tonight. But he also said teachers need better resources.

"Our teachers can no longer serve our students at the highest level with outdated material."

He said there is "no way our students can meet the expectations of the standards with outdated material."

• Vitti said the district needs to look for opportunities to eliminate some of the exams students are required to take.

"There is an inordinate amount of testing," he said.

• Vitti said schools need to address all of the needs of children, and that means ensuring they have access to more than just the core curriculum.

"We have to bring back the arts at all of our schools for all of our students."

• Vitti agreed with Lemmons about the district's need to challenge policies from above that they believe harm Detroit children.

"We have to become more aggressive at the state level and the federal level about policy with a clear, Detroit student-first ... agenda that promotes the excellence of traditional public schools."